These instructions are written to be generic; the concepts are
common to most word processors. The goal is to teach skills that can
be carried away rather than specifics that may vary from one program,
version, or platform to another.

Not a typewriter: The word processor is somewhat different
from a typewriter even though they have a lot in common. If you are
comfortable with the typewriter, you will need to "unlearn" some old
habits when using a word processor. On the typewriter, you hit a
return at the end of every line. On the computer, the text wraps
automatically from one line to the next so you only need to hit a
return at the end of the paragraph. On the typewriter, all alphabet
letters take up the same amount of space while, on the computer,
letters are proportional so "i"s and "l"s are
skinnier and take up less space than "w"s and "m"s.
When typing, you were probably taught to put one space between words
and two spaces between sentences. On the computer, you only need to
put one space between sentences.

Clicking and Double-clicking: Clicking means pushing
down on the mouse button once and quickly releasing it.
Double-clicking means clicking the mouse button two times
fast. Usually, you single-click the controls inside a program but you
double-click the icons when outside a program. Why? Somebody decided
it should work this way!

Dragging: Dragging means holding the mouse button
down while moving the mouse. You can click on an object and drag the
mouse to move the object to a new location.

Repositioning the mouse: If you are moving the mouse and
you run out of room, you can lift the mouse off the mouse-pad and
reposition it. Note that the pointer stops moving as soon as you lift
the mouse off the pad, and the pointer begins moving again when you
set the mouse down and move it.

Selecting Text: To move or delete some text, you must first
select it. Drag the pointer over the text and it will become
highlighted. Future commands will act upon the highlighted
text.

Cut: After selecting some text, choosing
"Cut" from the Edit menu causes it to be sent
to the clipboard. The selected text disappears.

Copy: After selecting some text, choosing
"Copy" from the Edit menu causes an identical
copy of the selected text to be sent to the clipboard. The
selected text remains where it was.

The Clipboard: The clipboard is a temporary
holding place for information that is cut or copied. It can
hold only one thing, and as soon as something new is cut or
copied, the old contents of the clipboard are thrown out and
the new item is stored there.

Paste: The contents of the clipboard can be pasted
by first clicking the location where the text should appear,
and then choosing "Paste" from the Edit
menu.

Undo and Redo: If you make a mistake, you can undo
the last thing you did by choosing Edit/Undo. If you
change your mind after Undoing, choose Edit/Redo.

Save and Save As...What's the difference?
Under the File menu, "Save As..." is used to
give the file a name for the first time, or to save it to a
new location. Save is used to write over the previous
version of a file you have been working on.

Print: When you are ready to print your work,
choose File/Print or the Print icon.

Help: Don't forget about the online help. It can
often help you figure out how to do something complicated.
The trick is to pick the right keywords in your search.
There is often an index as well as a search, and in some
programs, pointing at a tool will cause a popup menu to
appear after a few seconds.

Word Processing: Advanced

Keyboard Shortcuts: Most menu commands have keyboard
shortcuts. As you become familiar with a program, you will find that
you can work much faster if you learn them. You can find out what
they are by looking on the right side of the pull-down menus, next to
the commands. For example, the shortcut for save is Control-S on a PC
and Apple-S on a Mac.

Drag and Drop: As an alternative to Cut and
Paste, some word processors allow "Drag and Drop". In this
case, you highlight the text and then drag it and let go when the
pointer reaches the location where you want the text to go. It's easy
to drag and drop by accident so use this feature with care, and
remember the Undo function if you mess up.

Text Appearance

Type face: A variety of typefaces or Fonts
are available. In some programs, the Font menu is WYSIWYG
(what you see is what
you get!), so you can see what your text will look
like in advance rather than having to pick one by trial and error.
The following text appearance topics are WYSIWYG.

Type size: Each font comes in a variety of sizes. Larger
"point" sizes represent larger text. Note that sizes are not the
same across fonts, so "Helvetica"
12 point may not be the same size as "Times
New Roman" 12 point, but you can be sure that "New
York" 12 point is larger than "New
York" 9 point.

Text style: Each text font and size can also have a
"style" such as Plain, Bold, Italic,
Underlined, Superscript &
SubscriptTeletype,Strikethrough and others.

Color:Textcancomeinmanycolorsaswell,
and this is often useful if someone is editing your document so
you can easily see where the changes were made.

Paragraph Formatting

Alignment: Text can be set to left ,
center ,
right ,
or justified
(spaced so that the text fills the page). In most programs, this
is accomplished by highlighting the text and then clicking the
desired alignment button, although it can also usually be done
from the Format menu.

Text spacing: As with alignment, text can be set to
single-spaced, double-spaced, etc. by clicking the Increase and
Decrease Spacing buttons or from the menu.

Margins: You can set the amount of empty space at the
top, bottom, left and right sides of the page. Typically, the
default is a one inch margin all around.

Rulers: In a word processor, you can use the ruler to
set the indent, margin and tab markers
wherever you want them, and this can allow complex formatting
options. Never use the space bar and return key to align text.

Show Invisibles: There are invisible formatting control
characters embedded in the text such as hard returns, space
holders, underline, bold, and font controls. You can view these
characters to help find formatting problems by changing a setting
in the program preferences.

Spell Check: A spell checker is a useful tool, but it must
be used with care. Type a few lines of text into the program. If you
never make a mistake, add a few deliberate errurs sow wee can sea how
teh spellchecquer worcks. There are a few important things to
remember when using a spell checker: 1) it won't catch correctly
spelled words that are used improperly (their instead of
there, for example), 2) it won't recognize unusual person or
place names or technical words (though you can add these words to
your custom dictionary), 3) it won't notice if words are missing or
if the grammar is incorrect. Bottom line: Always proof read your
work after you spell check it.

Grammar Check: A modern grammar checker is pretty good at
finding legitimate problems and is definitely helpful on occasion,
but I personally find that it interrupts the flow of my writing if it
is set to check my grammar automatically. It also tends to be rather
slow. I prefer to run it after I am done (if at all), and I don't
always take its advice.

Tables: Adding tables is a nice way to produce organized,
professional looking documents. Unfortunately, the formatting tools
are often confusing and vary between programs. You will have to
explore this on your own.

Graphics: Most word processors allow you to insert images
into the text. In some cases, you may wish the graphic to underlay
the text while in others, the text should wrap around the image.
Although word processors have basic graphics tools, it is often
better to manipulate your images in a separate graphics program and
then import them.

Exporting documents: If you need to give your document to
someone with an older version of the same program, you will usually
have the choice of saving the document in an older version's format.
If the receiver has a different program, this technique still usually
works because most programs have import filters that will convert
documents they recognize. If the receiver still can't open your
document, save it as an RTF (rich text format) or, as a last resort,
as a plain text (ASCII) document. They may lose some or all of the
formatting and images, but at least they will get the text
itself.